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well, it's a South German surname, i.e. from Bavaria. Due to the dialects spoken there, vocals in the German language tend to disappear. This is probably what happened with Schmoyer. There is for example the surname Schomoyer. This became Schmoyer. The same for the surname Schomeyer, which became often Schmeyer. The origin of many -meijer names is said to be in the North of Germany, around Hannover and Osnabrück. But people move and probably moved to the south, where under influence of dialect the surnames changed (a bit). It seems highly likely to me that both Schomoyer and Schomeyer have the same meaning and that they're related to the Dutch surname Schoe(n)meijer. Schoen means 'shoe', so this surname might refer to a shoemaker. However, the meijer component in combination with a preceding component often has the meaning of 'tenant farmer' (or owned a farm). The first component in this case refers to the name of the farm. For example, the first Brenninkmeijer was the owner/tenant of the Brenninkhof. Schoenmeijer and Schoonemeijer have thus to be seen in this perspective, and to add, they're of German origin and thus it could very well be that Schoenmeijer comes from Schönmeyer (as oe is the way that ö in many languages that not have an umlaut is written). Schön is the German word for 'nice' or 'beautiful'. The name of the farm had at least this component (and probably was followed by components like -hof .